I stumbled around for a minute or two, refusing to accept the evidence of my senses. The pain in my ankle receded and my eyesight improved as I slowly paced the perimeter of the chamber, half expecting the woman to materialize in front of me. But, finally, I was forced to admit there was no one there.
I rested my forehead against the cold stone of the underground chamber and took a deep breath. I was suddenly conscious of hunger and thirst, it being some hours since dinner at Margaret Walker’s, and I needed sustenance. There was still much to be done, people to see, places to visit. But any further enquiries could wait until tomorrow. It had been a long, eventful and tiring day. With luck, Adela’s rabbit pie awaited me.
I groped my way upstairs to the nave, made my obeisance to Saint Giles and Our Lady, genuflected to the Host, then let myself out into Bell Lane. As I did so, the first splashes of rain, harbingers of a summer shower, hit the cobbles. Hurriedly, I headed for Small Street, almost colliding with someone coming in the opposite direction; someone dressed in the black of mourning and carrying a newly dyed gown over one arm – the smell of the blackberry juice was still very potent – and keeping its skirt from trailing in the dirt with her other hand.
‘M–Mistress Hollyns!’ I stammered, but she brushed past me with no more acknowledgement than a fleeting glance.
I stared after her as she quickened her pace. She was running by the time she turned into Broad Street, where she vanished from sight.
Vanished from sight … If I hadn’t seen Rowena Hollyns in Saint Giles’s crypt, then who – or what – had I seen? I shivered in spite of the warmth of the afternoon. Then I went home.
I had hoped to think things over in peace and quiet while I ate my rabbit pie, but I had reckoned without Adam’s recent discovery that if he hammered the base of a saucepan with a wooden spoon, it made the most delightful, ear-splitting noise. In addition to this agony, the arrival of Elizabeth and Nicholas in boisterous, slightly quarrelsome mood moved me to play the tyrranical father with rather more ferocity than I usually employed on these occasions, and the meal passed in sulky silence on the part of the two elder children and in an outpouring of frustrated rage by my son. Adela let me get on with it.
‘Did you sell much?’ she asked during a brief lull between Adam’s screams.
‘Er … not a lot.’
She knew me sufficiently well to accept that this meant nothing at all, and lapsed into disapproving silence. But after we had finished supper and she had despatched all three children to play in the buttery, she left the dirty dishes and coaxed me into the parlour, where she sat me in the window embrasure, drew up a stool and invited me to confide in her what was wrong.
‘For you looked as white as a sheet when you came in, though you seem somewhat better now. I’m afraid you haven’t really got over that near-drowning in the Avon.’
I allayed her fears, assuring her that I was fighting fit, and recounted the afternoon’s events, including the information I had gleaned from the Avenels’ kitchen maid, my conversations with Apothecary Witherspoon and the Capgraves, and my discovery of the bloodstain on the floor of the old synagogue cellars. The only episode I omitted was the appearance and disappearance of the spectral woman, which, since my meeting with Rowena Hollyns, I was now convinced had been some sort of hallucination. I didn’t want Adela fussing any more than she was doing already.
‘So,’ she commented, after a moment’s reflection, ‘you think Robin Avenel was murdered in one of those empty chambers next to Saint Giles’s crypt and his body removed later to Jewry Lane?’
‘I think it possible. Indeed, I’d say it’s probable.’
‘But why? Why would it be necessary to move the body, I mean?’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t know. If I did, I might have a better idea of who the murderer is.’
Adela wrinkled her forehead. ‘But where does Timothy Plummer fit into this puzzle? What’s he doing in Bristol?’
I shrugged. ‘At first, I thought he was just keeping an eye on Robin Avenel, but now I’m convinced there’s more to his presence than that.’ And I told her what I had learned from Jack Hodge and also from the landlord of the Full Moon, together with the tentative conclusions I had drawn from this information.
Adela was as incredulous as I had been.
‘But why on earth would King James’s brother come to Bristol?’ she snorted. ‘If he’s trying to escape to France, surely he’d make for the eastern ports, either in his own country or in this. The west country simply doesn’t make sense.’
‘So I tell myself,’ I answered gloomily. ‘I must try to find Timothy Plummer. I’m certain he holds the key to this mystery. The trouble is, I’ve no idea where to start looking. It’ll mean scouring the city from end to end. And I’ll have to talk to that sea captain, the one Robin Avenel was arguing with. That’s if he and his vessel are still anchored in Redcliffe Backs.’ I began to fret. ‘He could have sailed on the morning tide. Maybe I should go at once.’
Adela said forcefully, ‘You’re not going anywhere else this evening, Roger. It’s raining like the Great Flood and if you get soaked to the skin you’ll make yourself ill for a second time. Besides,’ she added, sitting on my lap and twining her arms about my neck, ‘I’ve bought a cabbage.’
It was so long since she was the one to make any advances, that I was momentarily taken aback.
‘You hate cabbage,’ was all I could think of to say.
‘It’s better than onion juice or bees,’ she pointed out. ‘But, of course, if you’re not interested …’
I tightened my grip on her. ‘Oh, I’m interested, sweetheart. It’s just that I don’t really believe that any of these remedies work.’ A crescendo of screams and yells from the buttery made us both shudder. ‘There must be a more effective way.’
‘Do you know of any?’
It was on the tip of my tongue to admit the truth, but caution held me silent. It would be time enough to test Adela’s reactions to the sheath once it was ready. Meanwhile, we should just have to put our faith in raw cabbage and my own ability and skill as a lover …
I awoke the following morning refreshed and reinvigorated, ready to face a new day, as hopeful as I could be that I had managed to avoid the conception of another child. Which was just as well, as I could already hear Adam stirring in his attic room overhead, and knew it was only a matter of minutes before our chamber door opened and he landed heavily on my chest.
Adela’s insistence on eating the whole of the cabbage, in spite of my assurance that it really wasn’t necessary, seemed to have done her no harm. She lay sprawled beside me, her dark hair strewn across the pillow, a sweet, satisfied smile curling her lips. The sight gave me a warm, smug glow. Abstinence hadn’t made me lose my touch. I was just as good as ever I was.
Even Adam’s usual breakfast-time tantrums failed to spoil our mutual feeling of love and goodwill. And although my wife suggested that I took both my pack and Hercules with me on my wanderings, she did not, in so many words, forbid me to continue with my quest to clear Burl’s name, with the result that, long before the city muckrakers had finished cleaning the streets, I had crossed Bristol Bridge to Redcliffe Back and was trying to decide which of the many ships anchored there might be the one approached by Robin Avenel the night before last.
I had noticed that both the Wine Street and Redcliffe pillories were free of malefactors, and wondered how Luke Prettywood and the apprentices were feeling after their ordeal. They would no doubt be the recipients of further punishment from their respective masters. Later on, I must seek Luke out and commiserate with him.
It was not easy to make my enquiries above the general racket of the quayside. But eventually a Portuguese sailor, who had witnessed the events of Midsummer Eve, and who spoke good English, informed me that the ship and crew I was looking for had sailed on yesterday afternoon’s ebb tide.
‘Do you know where the ship was from?’ I asked him.
‘Oh, yes. From Ireland. Gone back there now, I think.’
‘Ireland? You’re sure of that? Not Brittany or France?’
‘No, no! Ireland. I see captain drinking with his friends in Marsh Street alehouse.’
A slaving ship, then. But why would Robin Avenel be in touch with an Irish slaver?
I thanked my Portuguese friend and walked back to Redcliffe Street, wondering what to do next. I was annoyed with myself that I had let such an obvious source of information slip through my fingers, but the tidings of Robin Avenel’s murder, followed by Burl’s arrest and my own summons to give evidence, had led to muddled thinking and the wrong priorities.
While I debated my next move, I heard myself hailed. ‘Chapman!’
It was Luke Prettywood, looking dreadful with a black eye and a cut running the length of one cheek. Evidence of the filth and ordure thrown at him still clung in places to his shoulder-length fair hair, and his tribulations of the previous day had robbed him of all trace of cockiness. His customary satisfied smile was a travesty of its normal self.
‘Luke! What are you doing in Redcliffe during working hours?’ I clapped him on the shoulder and he winced.
‘I was on my way home. I’ve been dismissed from the brewery.’ He laid an urgent hand on my arm. ‘Roger, have you seen Marianne? I was told you were at the Avenel house sometime yesterday.’
‘But I didn’t see Mistress Avenel. Nor Mistress Alefounder, either, if it comes to that. So! Brewer Alefounder has dismissed you, has he? I’m not surprised. Assaulting a law officer was a stupid thing to do. So why did you do it, for heaven’s sake? It’s a few years now since you wore the apprentice’s flat cap. Why get involved in the quarrels of a pack of silly, muddle-headed boys?’
Luke shrugged. ‘It was something Jack Gload said. I can’t even remember what it was, but it got my goat. He’s such a stupid, ignorant fellow. I tell you what, chapman. Come back with me to the Green Lattis and I’ll buy you a stoup of ale. I’ve still a few coins left in my purse.’
I knew I shouldn’t oblige him – I had other, more pressing matters commanding my attention – but he looked such a sorry sight that I didn’t have the heart to refuse. So I accompanied him back across the bridge to the Green Lattis, and settled with him on a couple of stools near an unshuttered window.
It was early and we had the place almost to ourselves. The pot-boy brought us two mazers of ale, Hercules curled up next to my pack and went to sleep, and I spent the next quarter of an hour listening to the sentimental maunderings of Luke Prettywood concerning his love for Marianne Avenel.
The news of Robin’s murder had come not only as a terrible shock to Luke, but also as something of a release. At last he was able to speak openly about his affection for Marianne instead of always being obliged to conceal his true feelings.
‘And you’re quite sure she loves you in return?’ I asked. ‘I mean, Robin Avenel’s death is bound to change things. She’s now a very wealthy widow.’
‘Oh, I don’t know so much about that,’ he said. The colour was returning to his cheeks and, with every sip of ale, he was beginning to leave the torments of the previous day behind him. ‘Marianne always maintains that apart from the money he spent on clothes and his appearance, Robin was a pinchpenny. She had to economize on this, retrench on that. Although she thought that this miserliness was caused by necessity, not inclination.’
‘How could that be?’ I was sceptical. ‘His father’s a very rich man, and gossip has it that he was generous to his only son. Overgenerous, some said.’
‘That’s what Marianne can’t understand. She reckons Peter Avenel settled a lot of money on Robin when he got married. But where it all went, she has no idea. She did confide in me once that she was sure strangers occasionally came to the house, after she was in bed. But when she asked Robin about them, he told her she was imagining things and was so angry that she never dared raise the subject again. Could they have been debtors, or even blackmailers, do you think? She did wonder if he lent money to his sister. He and Mistress Alefounder were always close, even though they didn’t seem to like one another very much. Odd that, when you think about it.’
‘There are ties other than those of affection,’ I suggested. ‘Loyalty to a cause, perhaps. And causes, particularly lost ones, are constantly in need of money.’
Luke stared blankly at me. I changed the subject.
‘So what will you do now? Become the city’s chief beggar?’
‘I shall soon find other work,’ he bragged, his self-confidence returning. ‘If it comes to that, Marianne will undoubtedly persuade her father to take me back into the brewery. She can twist the old fool around her little finger. If I want to work for Gregory Alefounder again, that is.’ His self-conceit was very nearly restored to normal.
‘That’s decided then.’ I grinned. ‘But what about you and Mistress Avenel? You’re in no position to offer for her hand.’
‘Of course not.’ He was at least a realist. ‘She’s bound to marry again sometime or other: that’s only to be expected. Some choice of her father’s. Rich, that goes without saying. But she won’t give me up. She’ll keep me as her lover.’
He sounded so confident that I didn’t have the heart to prick his pretty bubble.
‘You’ll just go on meeting in Saint Giles’s crypt, eh?’ I teased him. ‘Even when you’re both old and grey and have to use crutches to get up and down the steps.’
‘You wouldn’t know anything about romantic love, now would you, chapman?’ he asked me lightly. ‘Not a staid old married man like yourself.’
‘I wouldn’t have thought the old synagogue cellars very conducive to comfortable love-making,’ I smiled. ‘But then, I suppose once Mistress Avenel’s got rid of her sister-in-law, she’ll be able to invite you to the house.’
But he refused to be drawn, merely giving me a small, secretive smile.
‘So, where was Master Avenel’s body found?’ he asked, after he had summoned the pot-boy and ordered two more cups of ale.
‘In Jewry Lane. Outside Saint Giles’s Church. He’d been stabbed, as no doubt you’ve heard by now.’
‘I did hear some talk, yes, when I was standing in the pillory. But my mind wasn’t really on what was being said, as you can well imagine.’
I could imagine. And if I needed any confirmation of his suffering, I could see it in the renewed pallor of his cheeks and his sudden, shallow breathing.
‘Mind you,’ I continued, in an effort to divert his thoughts, ‘I don’t think that’s where he was killed. I believe he was murdered in the church.’
That made him laugh and he at once looked better again. ‘What makes you think that? Been snooping, have you, chapman?’
‘Why does everyone accuse me of snooping?’ I demanded irritably. ‘I don’t snoop. I just try to discover the truth about things.’ That made him laugh even harder. ‘And as to why I think so, there’s a bloodstain on the floor.’
‘Really?’ He was intrigued. ‘Have you told Sergeant Manifold?’
I shook my head. ‘Not yet. On its own, it’s not evidence that would clear Burl Hodge … Did you know, by the way, that he’s been arrested?’ Luke nodded. ‘Well,’ I continued, ‘as I say, it’s not enough by itself to convince Richard Manifold that Burl is innocent. Once that man has made up his mind, he’s capable of twisting every fact to fit his theory and arguing black’s white and winter’s summer. So, I’ll wait until I have more facts.’
Luke swallowed the dregs of his second mazer. ‘Do you think you’ll find any?’
‘I don’t know. But one thing’s for certain! I won’t do so sitting here chatting to you.’
I rose to my feet, woke Hercules, shouldered my pack and took my departure. Luke caught me up outside the alehouse.
‘Hold hard,’ he begged. ‘I’d like to see this bloodstain you’ve discovered. Could you spare the time to show it to me?’
His thin features were full of ghoulish curiosity, and I realized afresh that he was still quite young. Only those with small experience of life’s cruelty can get excited by the prospect of viewing the spot where someone met a violent end. He had recovered with almost shocking rapidity from his purgatory of the previous day and I found myself envying him his ability to slough off misfortune without a second thought, safe in the conviction that it would never happen again, that the world was still a place of hope and the promise of adventure.
I knew I should waste no more time, but I was unable to resist that eager, boyish charm. Nor, if the truth be told, could I resist showing off my find to someone.
‘Very well,’ I agreed. ‘On one condition. You mention it to no one else until I give you leave. I don’t want Sergeant Manifold claiming the discovery as his own.’
Luke was scathing. ‘I wouldn’t talk to that piece of human excrement if he were the last man on Earth! Who do you think was responsible for having me put in the pillory?’
I laughed and we walked in companionable silence down Broad Street to the Bell Lane entrance of Saint Giles. I had chosen to avoid Small Street in case I was spotted by Adela. She could tell when I had been to the Green Lattis from behind closed doors. I was supposed to be working.
The church was, as ever, deserted. Luke advanced to the sacristy and from the shelf outside the door took down two candles which we lighted from a taper burning before the altar.
‘Be careful as you descend the steps,’ he advised me, for all the world as though I were his elderly uncle.
We padded through the crypt to the third chamber, holding our candles high. Silence prevailed except for our own muffled footfalls. Today, there was no phantom woman staring at me from beneath the archway. My imagination was playing no tricks.
I showed Luke the stain and the scuffed-up dust by which it was surrounded. It appeared a great deal fainter than it had the previous afternoon and my companion had to crouch down to see it properly. He rubbed it just as I had done, but today no dried flakes of blood adhered to his fingers.
‘That is a bloodstain,’ I insisted. Luke straightened up.
‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘In fact, I think you’re right. But it could be an old one.’ When I raised my eyebrows in enquiry, he went on, ‘Don’t you know what happened in this chamber, nearly two hundred years ago?’
I shook my head. I guessed it must have something to do with the expulsion of the Jews from England: there had been many atrocities in that year of Our Lord, 1290. Or many acts of zealous Christianity, depending on your point of view. I knew what mine was, but I pushed it down into the pool of other heretical thoughts and ideas swirling around just below the surface of my mind. When you’re a married man with children you can’t afford to be anything other than a coward.
‘So what did happen?’ I prompted.
Luke wriggled his shoulders as though they were hurting him. A day’s stooping in the pillory, pinioned by neck and wrists was sufficient to give anyone backache.
‘Well, according to my grandfather,’ he said, ‘who got it from his grandfather, or maybe his great-grandfather, most of the Bristol Jews fled the city early. They seemed to have foreseen what was coming and jumped before they were pushed, as the saying goes, taking ship from the Backs to France or Portugal or Spain. Apparently, the King had decreed that they should be allowed to take all money and movable goods with them – only land and property were to be forfeit to the crown – but of course this infuriated the local population everywhere. Everyone had hoped to grab a cache of the spoils for himself. The people of Bristol were no exception, and when word got round of the King’s decision, they stormed the synagogue. But, as I say, most of the Jews had already gone. However, about twenty or so were trapped down here in the cellar and hacked to pieces.’ Luke nodded at the floor. ‘That might just be a relic of this place’s grisly past.’
I understood now why I had always felt that sense of revulsion and misery in Saint Giles’s crypt and its adjacent chambers. Murder, hatred and grief were a part of the very stones, not only of these cellars, but also of the church itself. I wondered if other people felt it. Maybe that was why, for most of the time, it was so deserted …
All the same, I thought Luke was mistaken about the stain on the floor. I raised my candle and looked more closely at it. It was too dark, too fresh, to be two hundred years old. And there was also the evidence of the dust, disturbed and scuffed as it was. There had been a struggle here, but recently.
‘You’re wrong,’ I said. ‘This is where Robin Avenel was killed, I’m sure of it.’
Luke frowned, genuinely puzzled. ‘But why would his murderer bother to remove the body to Jewry Lane? Where would be the sense in that? Why not just run away? And there was the extra risk of being discovered while he was trying to lug the carcass up the steps from the crypt. As it happens, he wasn’t seen, but he might have been.’
I told him what I had told Adela earlier. ‘If I knew that, I’d probably have the solution to the killer’s identity. Now, don’t forget,’ I reminded him, ‘you’ve promised to say nothing about this to anyone.’
‘Oh, you can trust me,’ he assured me fervently. ‘If there’s anything I can do to put a spoke in Richard Manifold’s wheel, you can be certain that I’ll do it.’
There was no questioning his sincerity. His dislike of the sergeant made those brilliant blue eyes of his sparkle in the light from his candle.
I nodded and squeezed his arm gratefully. ‘Let’s go, then. Let’s get out of this place.’
We mounted the steps to the nave, snuffed out our candles and were about to take leave of one another, when the Bell Lane door creaked open.
There was a flurry of black draperies and Marianne Avenel came rushing in.